Harassed in my own house (legal, bill, office)

[jstevens44]

We got the same thing when we first got our number. There were a couple of people they were looking for. It went on an on for awhile, but I was polite and explained that this is a newly assigned number and the person they were looking for didn't live here. They were always polite and said they would take my number off their listing. Of course, we'd get the calls again, but I just did the same thing each time. Eventually they stopped calling.

We get messages from Cabbarus County schools though, even though we live in Indian Trail, Union County. We got four calls last night from the school board. All recorded messages. The last one was in Spanish.

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by NCyank

Did you misread this entire thread? We're talking about getting calls for the PREVIOUS OWNER of the phone number. Ani isn't the one who owed money to collectors.

I think you're the one that misinterpreted that reply. Even I could tell that the poster was joking.

[bd9299292]

There are probably a couple of issues going on...

1. As a previous poster said, collections people get lied to constantly. They might not believe you if you say you've never heard of the person, especially if you're angry/upset.

2. Changing your number might be the best solution because... If they remove your number from the account, then the next collections agent comes along and sees there's no number, they do a quick search online and whammo, your number ends up back on the account. Happens all the time. Ask them (nicely) to note on the account that the person they're looking for is not at that number (which they should be doing anyway).

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by NCyank

Did you misread this entire thread? We're talking about getting calls for the PREVIOUS OWNER of the phone number. Ani isn't the one who owed money to collectors.

Thank you, NCYank! You are right - this is not about strategies for folks who are hiding from creditors, LOL!!! And yes, I pay my bills.

[CVP]

I have the same problem with my home and cell phones. I also get text messages intended for someone else. A short time ago I got one at midnight that said "Hey Baby, can I come over?" Try explaining that to your husband! Today I received a text with a religious picture that said "What side are you on? If it's Jesus' side, sent to as many people as you can. If it's Satan's side, don't send at all." I replied to the person and said "This is Satan. Now stop texting me!"

[ilovethemountains2]

ummmm Change your phone number...

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by ilovethemountains2

ummmm Change your phone number...

She just moved here and had to change her phone number - I am sure the thought of doing that again is pretty daunting. And it probably wouldn't matter - she would most likely get the old number of another person who moved away owing a bunch of creditors, LOL!!!!

[chicagomichauds]

Originally Posted by jstevens44

We get messages from Cabbarus County schools though, even though we live in Indian Trail, Union County. We got four calls last night from the school board. All recorded messages. The last one was in Spanish.

Hey I forgot about that! I also get calls from Sharon Elementary all the time. At least those are recorded and not too often. One day I had a teacher call for Ryan, right at the beginning of the school year.

[chicagomichauds]

Well (knock on wood), no calls today from HFC Beneficial Customer Service!

I also reported them to the Do Not Call list but maybe the final person I talked to yesterday really took the number off their list.

[brichard]

I recently had the same issue. I have a policy, though: all my friends and family have and use only my cell phone number; I ONLY use my land line for business-oriented calls, and never give out my cell number to businesses. When my land line phone rings, I never answer (because all too often it's an unwanted solicitation). I will only return the call if they leave a message and the call is legitimate. The beauty of this system is I can keep the ringer on my land line turned off and never be bothered (except on those occasions when I am expecting a particular call and need it on). But I just happened to have the ringer on for a few days and noticed this one number was calling me about five times a day, every day. And they never left a message. (Yes, I'm on the do-not-call list, but there are so many loopholes with that it doesn't matter.) So anyway, this one number keeps calling me repeatedly. So the first thing I did was Google it, and I find a message board with all kinds of people complaining about receiving calls from this same number, and that the calls were being made allegedly from a collection agency. Bottom line: In my case, I always pay all my bills on time and in full, so no collection agency should be calling me. So either they've got the wrong number, or they're up to no good. In either case, I don't want to talk to them. So the ringer stays off.

Originally Posted by chicagomichauds

Ever since we moved here we have gotten calls from collection agencies looking for someone called Jerod Sullivan or Edward Sullivan or something similar. I have been everything from polite to upset and explained over and over again that this is not the number this person lives at and to pls take it off the list.

But they persist. Today specifically I got the same number calling over seven times. Four of those times I answered and the other 3 I was out of the house. I even specifically called back the number and spoke to someone specifically in their collections area to tell them to lose the number completely. 10 min later, you guessed, a different idiot called again. I was not very nice to her.

My question is: how do you deal with this harassment? Short of changing my number which is a pita, is there an agency, group, anyone that I can report the caller to?